24. May, 2005 - beautiful weather

Yesterday was about as good as the weather in Minnesota gets. Sunny, around 70, and just enough breeze to keep the air clear. I celebrated it by talking to Jon from Finer Surroundings as he replaced the window that broke a while back (under warranty) and mowing the lawn. When that was done, I spent a while gabbing with a neighbor who was also out doing yard work. A little lunch, a little work, then it was time to get the chicken ready (based on AB’s recipe) and out to the ballgame.

The Saints picked up where they’d left off Sunday afternoon, and ended up beating Schaumburg 13-9, and tying the series. Schaumburg’s pitching staff reminds me of Spahn and Sain and two days of rain. They’ve got a couple pretty darned good starting pitchers, but once you get past those, there’s no depth in their pitching staff.

Once again, I’m going to have to promise the pictures from the ballpark are still coming. I haven’t had time to suck everything from the camera and sort them out yet. Maybe today if I can get the bug I’m working on stomped quickly.

Some new ‘Buy American’ legislation draws fire, since the legislation requires DHS to buy things that are at least 50% made in the US. That means they’ll have to do without computers and cell phones. As an added benefit, it’ll probably invite backlash legislation from other countries. I’m pretty sure I’d be much more comfortable with DHS if they had to do without computers. [slashdot]

Warren’s got a nice post about the Mistrust of Individual Decision-Making and how it leads to the nanny-state we’re in. If you don’t trust people to make intelligent decisions about how to run their lives, of course you have to regulate them to death. [coyote blog]

Here’s an article on Why Crunch Mode Doesn’t Work. I’ve known most of that for years, and one of the things I like most about running my own business is that I generally manage to operate entirely in the “productive” part of the curve. When things are going well, I’m spending 4-6 hours per day doing productive work for my clients, and am running near the peak of the curve for productivity. Yes, I could put in more hours, but I wouldn’t get as much done, and wouldn’t be able to bill at as good of a rate. [accordionguy]